Links

TTimo updated the QERadiant.com news page to announce that the next release of hisGTK+-based Q3 level editor GtkRadiant willbe made available “sometime next week”:

We have had Id’s Q3Radiant 200f for a while now and are working on building a version 1.1-TA of GtkRadiant which will contain the latest changes from Id and the usual bugfixes and new features. This will come with a setup and some editing media (entities file, .md3 and editor textures) for Team Arena mapping.

Furthermore, id’s Robert Duffy updated his .plan with additional info:

I am off on vacation starting Sunday for a week or so and will obviously be in-active in the mod forums. I do plan to get active once I get back. I’ve been looking at as many mods as possible lately, we are starting to ramp up on DOOM pretty quickly but I wanted to sneak some time to see what all was there. The Q3F stuff looks really nice and next month while I am visiting the Wolfenstein guys I hope to hook up with the Urban Terror guys just to see what all they have planned. WFA looks great and Rocket Arena is as usual sucking up a lot of playtime. There are some more single player things that look interesting as well. I still have about 300 to look at but that is all good stuff.

A FAQ should be going up soon that provides some work arounds for Team Arena and the point release. All in all it has looked really good. We will be releasing a patch at some point to address anything serious that comes up and we also want to provide the ability to allow mod makers to reference an existing fs_game path for mod creation. This will allow mods to be based on Team Arena.

The ever-prolific Patrick Mullen of theDuke of URL let us know that they’ve posteda review of the just-releasedXFree86 version 4.0.2. The review includes benchmarks for Q3Awith Voodoo 3, Voodoo 5, and GeForce2 GTS cards, and looks at the various new features XFree86 now bringsto the table.

Stan Shebs wrote in to announce the release ofXconq version 7.4.1. Xconq is a general turn-basedstrategy game system with a large variety of warfare settings; changes in 7.4 include:

This release features Hans Ronne’s new Tolkien-inspired game”Lord of the Rings”, Keir Novik’s “Carrier Battles” and “Coral Sea”game, ability to see all units in a stack, more flexibility whenstarting up network games, better feedback when units can’t dothings, isometric map display (Unix only), and many Mac interfaceimprovements. There are also a number of smaller changes, see theNEWS file for details.

3D Rage has a previewarticle up for the IndremaLinux-based L600 console system, which doesn’t really say anything that hasn’t been addressed before, although it examinesthe specifications more closely than others have in the past.

Auran (who developed the 3D RTS Dark Reign) fired in word that the Beta 2 release of theirtheir AURAN Jet game authoring system, whichthey have stated in the past will includeLinux support, will be released on January 31, 2001.

Lee Anderson wrote in to let us know thathe’s posted his reviewof Heavy Gear 2 atGamesmania. Anderson evaluates the single player campaign,the control system, and gear customization; several screenshots are also included.

a) I’m not dead and not ignoring y’all. Just working hard, focusing, and trying to get stuff done so we can reopen the beta.

b) The beta period is not over yet. We will be reopening it soon to resume testing after a shutdown “hiatus” where we are closing a ton of bugs and improving performance/gameplay.

c) I have no release date info for you. Despite having a firm intention of hitting a specific date, I’m not even hinting at when that date is except to my upper management (who require more than hints. ; )

d) I’ll be in touch when I can. Just letting you know we’re still working hard here.

Dynamix also supplied TribalWar with a mock movie-style Tribes 2 poster, which can be foundhere. Finally, if you’re not sick of themby now, another T2 preview is up at 3DGameGear.

Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote in to announce the release Heroes 0.8 (Screenshots). Heroes is a Nibbles-style game with five game modes. Heroes features 12 original sound tracks, 94 levels (with 10 different tile sets) plus a level editor. Changes/Fixes for this release are:

Miguel Angel Blanch wrote in to letus know that version 1.0.0 of the ArianneMMORPG system has been released. This version is a complete rewrite of the oldsystem and therefore has a stronger core but isn’t exactly playable. You can,however, chat and move over the terrain to get an idea of where the project isin development.

Starbuck Zero wrote in to point outan article @NewsForge entitled “Linux gaming parity: Don’t hold your breath”.The editorial, written by Grant Gross, examines the currentstate of Linux’s quest for acceptance by developers and publishers as a gaming platform.

There’s not a lot of official comments we can make about 3dfx, mostlybecause we don’t actually know much.

Our contract with 3dfx actually expired a while back. They’ve beenworking internally on the driver, mostly on the SLI/FSAA issues.

We have a second customer that has been paying us to develop the 3dfxdriver. That work is also coming to a close, but it resulted in thecomplete rewrite of the core driver that you see in the tdfx-3-0branch.

We really have no knowledge of what nVidia is going to do in the futurewith 3dfx hardware and software. We continue to talk with nVidia on andoff. So, far that hasn’t resulted in any development contracts. Luckilydocumentation for the V3 and glide for the V5 is available, so anyonewho wants to develop these drivers independently in the future may wellbe able to do so.

That’s about all there is to say. After the amount of time I put intotheir hardware I’m sad to see 3dfx go. Compared to most vendors, theywere good about supporting Linux, in providing source and documentation,and paying for development. I personally think more competition is goodfor consumers, but it is a rough market to survive in. We’ll see whathappens with the remaining hardware manufacturers.

Also, an archive of(RealAudioformat) Monday’s conference call held by NVIDIA to answer investorquestions regarding the deal has been made available. Finally, the announcementFAQ has once again been posted.